Germany’s supreme court decides not to ban the neo-Nazi party

YES, Germany’s National Democratic Party (NPD) is “related to National Socialism”, the country’s supreme court in Karlsruhe said on January 17th. And yes, its aims are to undermine Germany’s constitution and ultimately to establish an ethnically pure German Volk. And yet, the red-robed judges opined, there is no sign that the NPD could come close to fulfilling its goals. The party, it ruled, will therefore not be banned.

This landmark verdict ends a decades-long saga of failed efforts to declare Germany’s neo-Nazi party illegal. A previous attempt to outlaw the NPD foundered in 2003 because government-paid informants were among the witnesses, tainting the evidence. The latest push began in 2013, when the federal legislature’s upper chamber, representing Germany’s 16 states, brought a new case. But the standard of proof for banning political parties, mandated by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, is high. In societies that value free speech and association, it is not enough to prove even the worst motivation; a party must also have a “real potential” to make good on evil designs.